Thursday, December 25, 2014

An Indictment of December

December is the cruelest month. I have
always found it to be far worse than April.

December is a time for alienation.
Those of us who are less-than and too much just don't enjoy this time
of year. It always feels like the Christmas Joy being spread is for
other people and not us. We don't get that in our lives.

Not us. We less-thans and too muches
don't fit in all of that. We know that when we drive by a tavern at
night and see it lit up with people inside laughing, that's not for
us. We know that none of our friends are inside and if we went in,
nobody would even know who we were.

House after house full of people,
lights, trees, candles and laughter. None of it for us. And if we
were invited, it would feel like sandpaper on our teeth. Instead,
most of us go home to our empty apartments and houses, only to watch
a movie or surf the web.

We less-thans and too muches simply do
not belong. The happiness, the joy, the comfort—all of it is for
those other people.

We are at our most vulnerable in our
loneliness.

December is when we remember those
we've lost. There is a gaping hole where those people should be and
nothing can fill it. But the loss isn't nearly as bad as the
memories. Those shadows that sing to us and re-create those
wonderful times we once had only to remind us that we were happy
once. Yes, a long time ago, we were happy.

December is when those empty spaces
next to us are canyons. And as we see happy couples around us, we
are reminded of just cold and dark the nights can be.

December is when we realize all we were promised in the previous months, all that was held out for us to have and be, was nothing more than bullshit.

December is when we recall being the
victims of others. The slurred speeches from drunken people claiming
to love us still ring in our ears.

December is when people tell us about
all the crap they bought and in our heads we convert it to rent
payments, tanks of gas, groceries, power bills, and all the other
stuff we need to survive. And then we realize that no matter what we
wanted to do for somebody, we never could, because we're a less-than
and a too much and too broke.

December is wrong for all the wrong
reasons. It's a time we're told to be happy and we simply are not.
It's a time when we're supposed to feel close to the people around us
and somehow that distance seems stretched. December is when we count
down in anticipation of a day that means cramped, stuffy rooms full
of people we normally would never associate with while we are told to
feel emotions we do not feel.

December reminds me of the dystopian
futures where evil tyrannical governments place signs everywhere that
scream at us to be happy no matter how unhappy we feel. And only if
we submitted ourselves to the to the insanity around us we would feel
comfort and joy.

Every day in December feels like the
morning despair after a failed suicide attempt.

There is no Santa Claus. No special
elf will come save us. No Father Christmas or magical snowman will
show up on our front lawn. The ghosts of Christmas are only in our
memories and serve only as our tormentors. No angels will visit. Nobody will come in at the 11th hour and save us.

There is nothing.

This is my last December. I'm not
going to die, but instead I'm going to re-name this fucking month and
make my own holidays. No more of this shit. I realize now that I
cannot walk away from the past if it keeps coming back up every 12
months like a shitty Friday the 13th sequel. And I will
never have the reality being force-fed to us as soon as Halloween
ends.

Those of us who are less-than and too
much can change only so much, but this is certainly in our power and
grasp. We don't have to live like this. And as I write this, it is
Christmas Eve and I am so emotionally drained I simply no longer care
about much of anything.

We are at our most vulnerable in our
loneliness.

I am already working on a new paradigm
for the final month of the year. It is one that doesn't include a
lot of the gibberish and bullshit we've become accustomed to and
replaces that with something more creative and relevant. Those of us
who are less-thans and too muches don't need to spend this bleak
midwinter feeling like hungry ghosts. It doesn't have to be like
this.